Freedom of information requests

Secure Data Environment (SDE)

Questions

Your organisation recently secured funding from NHS England for the development of a Secure Data Environment (SDE).

1. Is the bid/application published and, if so, where? If not published, could you please provide me with a copy? Who were the key contributors to the bid (e.g. Principal Investigator)?

Response

The Trust does hold the information you have requested, however it is exempt from disclosure because it is intended for future publication - as described in Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act (2000).

Under section 22 of the FOIA we are not obliged to provide information that is intended for future publication. In line with the terms of this exemption, we have considered whether it would be in the public interest for us to provide you with the information ahead of publication, despite the exemption being applicable. In this case, I have concluded that the public interest favours withholding the information.

When assessing whether or not it was in the public interest to disclose the information to you, we took into account the following factors:

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure
• Disclosure would improve transparency in the operations of the NHS
• Disclosure of the information under FOIA would be consistent with our commitment to proactively publish data on matters of a wider public interest.

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information
• As the information is of interest to the wider public it is important it can be accessed simultaneously by the general public rather than piecemeal by disclosure to a small number of individuals under the FOIA. Therefore it is in the wider interest that information is accessible to the wider public by adhering to the publication schedule.
• The evaluation of the Healthy Identity Intervention (HII) and its previous pilot is going through the standard internal quality assurance checks and may be subject to further revision before publication. It is in the public interest that the quality assurance process is able to conclude before making information available to the public to ensure confidence and accuracy in the information disclosed.
• As the assurance process is ongoing, early release of the requested information could be misrepresentative of the research and could potentially impact upon policy and operational decisions around the assessment, treatment and management of offenders, and ultimately the safety of the public.

We reached the view that, on balance, the public interest is better served by withholding this information under section 22 of the FOIA at this time.

Please provide your direct email address to foi@uhb.nhs.uk if you would like more information on the SDE and the publication of the EOI.